speakers

Hello I'm Alexander De Croo

Alexander De Croo is currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Post and Telecom in the Belgian Federal Cabinet. From 2012 to 2014 he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Pensions. Before taking the office of Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo was Party Chairman of Open Vld, the Flemish liberal-democrats. In 2010, he was elected Senator, scoring third in the popular vote in Flanders.

Alexander De Croo

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Post and Telecom

Hello I'm Nils Walravens

Senior researcher at imec-SMIT-VUB recently finished a PhD on Smart Cities, identifying strategies for cities looking to create public value through mobile applications.

Nils Walravens

Senior Researcher

imec-SMIT-VUB

Hello I'm Loraine Furter

Loraine Furter is a board member of Wikimedia Belgium and part of the collective Just For The Record, working on the gender gap on Wikipedia.

Loraine Furter

Board Member

Wikimedia Belgium

Hello I'm Inge Van Nieuwerburgh

Inge Van Nieuwerburgh is co-ordinator scholarly communication at Ghent University. Open access to research publications, (open) research data management and other open science themes are at the core of her interests. She is one of the open access advocates behind Open Access Belgium and supports policy development and support and training through different national and international working groups and expert groups. Some buzz words in Inge’s CV are OpenAIRE, copyright reform, literacy and SA&S.

Inge Van Nieuwerburgh

Coordinator scholarly communications - Board Member

UGhent - Open Knowledge & Open Access Belgium

Hello I'm Arnaud Wattiez

Arnaud Wattiez works for the Belgian National Railways (SNCB) as a Systems & Digital Innovation Manager for the Sales & Marketing Direction. Digital Innovation is a priority for NMBS, and Open Data is an important part of it. During his intervention, Arnaud will explain the status of Open Data today at SNCB, and how start-ups and innovators can benefit from it to develop new apps and user interfaces for their customers.

Arnaud Wattiez

Manager systems & digital innovations

NMBS

Hello I'm Toon Vanagt

Toon Vanagt is a entrepreneur with broad experience in all aspects of setting up and managing ventures in the Benelux. He has hands-on experience with e-business, consulting, big data and ICT projects.

Toon Vanagt

Chairman of the board

Open Knowledge Belgium

Hello I'm Bart Hanssens

Bart Hanssens is an open standards and Open Data expert working for Fedict, the Belgian Federal Public Service for ICT. He's an all-round IT'er with a focus on "open".

Bart Hanssens

Interoperability Expert

Digital Transformation Office

Hello I'm Bart Rosseau

Born, Raised, Educated and Working in Ghent.
Driven by Data usage for societal leverage and Rock N Roll.

Bart Rosseau

Chief Data Officer

Ghent City Council

Hello I'm Maarten Lambrechts

Maarten is a data journalist and data visualization specialist. He tries to find stories in data and communicates numbers by making them visual. He also builds interfaces, so people can find their own stories easily.

Maarten Lambrechts

Data Journalist

Freelance

Hello I'm Peter Defreyne

Peter Defreyne is an electrotechnical engineer with a master degree's in applied sciences. His main focus is on bridging the gap between ICT-technology and application domains. He has been working as a research engineer and project leader for VRT-medialab. Afterwards he has joined the high tech startup SDNsquare in software-defined IT-infrastructure for high performance applications as technology expert and product manager. Since 2015 he is working as a valorization-minded project manager on digital innovation and disruption in the transport & mobility industry.

Peter Defreyne

Project Manager

Antwerp Management School / VIM

Hello I'm Céline Vanderborght

At a time when the smart city concept was far from a reality, the Brussels-Capital Region was already preparing the ground, among other things with the IRISbox electronic desk. That was at the beginning of the 2000s, when Céline Vanderborght was already playing an active role in these developments anticipating the smart city as e-Government Manager at the Brussels Regional Informatics Centre, a position she held until 2006. Since 2015, Céline Vanderborght has been Smart City Manager for the Brussels Region, a role that is directly in line with her initial professional experience at the service of the Region.

Céline Vanderborght

Smart City Manager

Brussels Region

Hello I'm Pieter Colpaert

Works at imec - Ghent University, volunteers at Open Knowledge Belgium and the iRail project. His research is on publishing transport data for maximum reuse.

Pieter Colpaert

Researcher - Board member - Public lead

imec - Open Knowledge Belgium - iRail

Hello I'm Lucia Decuyper

Head of Dissemination Unit Statistics Belgium

Lucia Decuyper

Head of Dissemination Unit

Statistics Belgium

Hello I'm Heleen Vollers

Heleen is a Senior Management Consultant within Capgemini Consulting and is actively involved in the development of the European Data Portal and associated services, on behalf of the European Commission – DG CONNECT. Beyond being just a Portal, the project offers support services to countries as they mature on their Open Data journey. In addition, there is a strong focus on driving a user community and understanding the benefits of Open Data. Heleen leads the research work on measuring the level of Open Data maturity across Europe.

Heleen Vollers

Senior Management Consultant

Capgemini Consulting

Hello I'm Glyn Arthur

Glyn Arthur is Vice President - Global Business Development at Luciad. Previously he was Sales Director, responsible for building the Luciad sales organisation in Africa, Middle East and Turkey regions. Glyn has worked in the defence and aerospace industry for over 25 years with companies such as Barco, Primary Image and the Peninsular Group. He is a recognised subject matter expert in defence, simulation and training solutions together with Air Traffic Management and Airport operations.

Glyn Arthur

Vice President - Global Business Development

Luciad

Hello I'm Thimo Thoeye

Thimo is a computer scientist with a passion for all things data. He studied the Semantic Web at the Gent University and is active in local government, where he is looking for innovative ways to foster the power of data to increase the knowledge of government and citizens alike. He is a strong advocate of open data and believes that information technology should be employed to create a more transparent, fair and prosperous society.

Thimo Thoeye

Open Data Manager - Board Member

City of Ghent - V-ICT-OR - Open Knowledge Belgium

Hello I'm Philippe Van Impe

Philippe Van Impe is a Founding Partner of the Brussels Data Science Community, a large open community of specialists in data and business. The community's activities aim to bridge the gap between businesses and academia, through regular meetups, training and ‘Data for Good’ projects, where members contribute their skills to work on projects with NGO’s, public institutions and start-ups.
Philippe is also the Founder of the European Data Innovation Hub, which connects and supports data professionals throughout Europe to share and discuss best practices in open data, big data and data innovation.
Philippe is a Social Entrepreneur simultaneously pursuing both a financial & a social return on investment.

Philippe Van Impe

Founder

EU Data Innovation Hub

Hello I'm Bert Jehoul

Bert Jehoul is founder of the Open Badges Belgium working group and recent board member of Open Knowledge Belgium.
He works at Selor (Selection Office for the Belgian Government) where he leads an innovation-Lab and helped initiating the Be Badges platform. Bert has a background in Psychology and Psychometrics and is an enthusiastic user of the statistical software R.

Bert Jehoul

Strategic Support - Founder & Lead of Innovation Lab

SELOR

Hello I'm Ingrid Willems

Ingrid Willems is CEO of DataScouts. DataScouts is an Ecosystem Intelligence Platform that allows to visualize, explore and engage with the connected organisations in a business ecosystem. Datascouts helps business developers and ecosystem leads to stay informed about trends, innovations and the vibrancy of their network.

Ingrid Willems

CEO

DataScouts

Hello I'm Mathias Van Compernolle

Mathias Van Compernolle joined imec-MICT-UGent in 2013. He holds a Bachelor degree in Social Work and a Master Degree in Public Administration. He is currently working on his Phd concerning open data, egovernment within smart cities. He functions as Policy and Methodology Lead at Smart Flanders.
As an open data enthusiast at the board of Open Knowledge Belgium he follows up open data policies in Belgium.
Next to this he lecturers politics and organizations studies at Artevelde University College.

Mathias Van Compernolle

Researcher - Board member

imec-MICT-UGent - Open Knowledge Belgium

Hello I'm Sébastien Goffin

Sébastien has a mission at STIB to develop the entire infrastructure of digital communication. He played a key role in developing the OPENDATA STIB platform, the new website, the redesign of the mobile application but also longer-term projects such as the development of a new mobile application and a website that entirely focuses on its users (customer centricity).
His role goes as far as the evolution of the datasets as well as the connection of this one between them.

Sébastien Goffin

Digital projects advisor

STIB MARKETING department

Hello I'm Raf Buyle

Raf is involved in strategic e-Government projects for local and regional governments since 2002. As an advisor in e-government strategy, Raf tries to implement a more rational, interoptable e-government, promoting open data, open standards and open processes. Raf is also board member of Open Knowledge Belgium. He’s active in the in the Open Data community, advocating Open Tourism Data.

Raf Buyle

Board member

Open Knowledge Belgium

Hello I'm Nikos Loutas

Nikos is coordinating Data and Analytics within PwC’s Technology Consulting practice in Belgium. He has helped several organisations develop their data strategies. He has been busy with open and linked data since 2007. He has enjoyed the journey so far and is happy to see the baby grow. Nikos is a lover of data and semantics. He believes firmly that (big) data value will not be driven from volume or velocity, but mainly from linking various data.

Nikos Loutas

Senior manager

PwC Consulting Technology

Hello I'm Bert van Hemelen

Bert Van Hemelen has an all-round career in ICT.
The last decade he works at the Flemish public Transport Company De Lijn.
As Chief Architect he contributes in defining and realizing the digital strategy of De Lijn.

Bert van Hemelen

Chief Architect

De Lijn

Hello I'm Ann Bernaert

Ann Bernaert is domain responsible at Digipolis. She is responsible for all the websites of the city of Ghent and is also busy with open data and linked open data since 2011. Her team developed the current open data portal, stad.gent in which some modules are made machine readable. She was also involved in AppsForGhent from the beginning.

Ann Bernaert

Domain Manager for web

Digipolis Ghent

Hello I'm Vincent Van Malderen

Vincent Van Malderen is currently managing director at Jobpunt Vlaanderen, thé reference for personnel & organizational services for the Flemish public sector. Until 2015 Vincent was Product & Innovation Manager at Selor (Selection Office for the Belgian Government) where he was project manager and (co-)founder of the Be Badges platform. His main interests are Innovations in HR, Evidence-based HR, talent mobility & Open badges. Vincent obtained Master's degrees in Clinical Psychology and in Comparative Cultural Studies at Ghent University.

Vincent Van Malderen

Managing Director

Jobpunt Vlaanderen

Hello I'm Virginie Tumelaire

Virginie Tumelaire works as collaborator at Amazone asbl, Crossroads Gender Equality, more pecularly in the Documentation Centre on Gender Policy. The documentation centre collects and disseminates documents related to gender equality policy from the authorities and the women's civil society organisations. It provides several services such as research and information services on gender equality issues.

Virginie Tumelaire

Collaborator

Amazone asbl

Hello I'm Gerdy Seynaeve

Working in innovation at Proximus on monetisation of big data in a B2B context. We make sense out of data coming from the mobile network of Proximus, in a privacy compliant way.

Gerdy Seynaeve

Innovation Manager

Proximus

Hello I'm Yves Thomas

Yves Thomas is in charge of the open data portal in the Brussels-Capital Region.

Yves Thomas

Project Manager

CIRB-CIBG

Hello I'm Ferdinand Casier

Ferdinand Casier holds an Executive Master in Management from the Solvay Business School and has more than 16 years of experience in the ICT sector. In March 2013 he joined Agoria, the Belgian Federation for the technology industry, as Business Group Leader for the Digital Industry. He stimulates data innovation through the EluciDATA project in collaboration with Sirris and DTAI and has a strong focus on IoT, cyber security and information management.

Ferdinand Casier

Business Group Leader Digital Industries

Agoria

Hello I'm Eric Van Horenbeeck

Eric Van Horenbeeck has a PhD in Computer Linguistics from the University of Antwerp. In 2016 he started PVH Data Consulting together with Tom Pauwaert to implement a novel algorithm for unsupersived semantic analysis of unstructured data, unlocking valuable insights beyond the capabilities of currently available solutions.

Eric Van Horenbeeck

Researcher

University of Antwerp

Hello I'm Ciell

Ciell has been an admin on the Dutch Wikipedia for over 10 years and one of the females that joined forces in the Dutch gendergap project group.

Ciell

Admin

Wikipedia

Hello I'm Tom Janssens

Tom Janssens is a Belgian developer focused on creating user-focused 'things' for the web, tech entrepreneur and free software advocate. Tom is COO of Timble and former lead developer of the Open Government Platform of the Belgian Police.

Tom Janssens

Chief Operating Officer

Timble

Hello I'm Youri Baeyens

Working in the field of Data Science since 1995.
Head of Unit Datawarehouse & Data support.

Youri Baeyens

Head of Unit Datawarehouse & Data support

Statistics Belgium

Hello I'm Veronique Volders

Veronique Volders is Program Manager E-Strategy @ the Flemish Agency for Domestic Governance.

Veronique Volders

Program Manager E-Strategy

Flemish Agency for Domestic Governance

Hello I'm Miel Vander Sande

Miel is a full-time researcher at Multimedia Lab (http://mmlab.be) of Ghent University. His main interest and expertise are (Linked Open) Data publishing, Read-Write Web, technological support for open data legislation, ontology mapping and data transformation. Miel was involved in several Flemish and European research projects involving Semantic Web technologies and Linked Open Data.

Miel Vander Sande

Linked Data Researcher

imec

Hello I'm Sander Van Dooren

Sander is a software craftsman working with the AUSY Group. Now he's involved with the Joinup project as a web consultant at the European Commission.

Sander Van Dooren

Application Architect

AUSY Group

Hello I'm Ingrid Reynaert

Ingrid Reynaert is Business Group Leader Smart Cities at Agoria since 2011. Before she built up 15 years of experience in innovation executing different positions at imec, Cabinet of the Flemish Minister of Science and Innovation and Agoria. She has a passion for technology improving the climate, mobility and health and loves creating ecosystems for collaboration. Ingrid has received the degree of Bio-Engineer and has a PhD in Medical Sciences.

Ingrid Reynaert

Business Group Leader Smart Cities

Agoria

Hello I'm Katrien De Smet

Katrien De Smet is Project Manager LBLOD at the Flemish Agency for Domestic Governance.

Katrien De Smet

Project Manager LBLOD

Flemish Agency for Domestic Governance

Hello I'm Dieter De Paepe

Dieter is a technology enthusiast. After working several years in the private sector, he took an interest in web technology and joined the semantic web group at IDLab - imec, where he now works as a researcher.

Dieter De Paepe

Researcher

Ghent University – imec

Hello I'm Brecht Van de Vyvere

Brecht Van de Vyvere works as a data engineer at the Flemish Institute for Archiving. He participated at three editions of open Summer of Code and is active at iRail.

Brecht Van de Vyvere

Data Engineer

VIAA - iRail

Hello I'm Ziggy Vanlishout

Ziggy Vanlishout has been working for the Flemish Information Agency since 2002. The mission of the agency is to enable an optimal application of information within the region. Ziggy is the product manager of the spatial address registry project and the buildings registry project. Currently Ziggy coordinates the ‘OSLO²/CRAB LOD’ programme. This programme aims at developing an integrated and harmonized set of semantic agreements for the domains of persons, organisations, addresses, buildings and public services by extending International standards.

Ziggy Vanlishout

Product manager

Informatie Vlaanderen

Hello I'm Tom Pauwaert

Tom Pauwaert has a masters in Computer Science from the University of Antwerp. In 2016 he started PVH Data Consulting together with Eric Van Horenbeeck where Tom resolved the unique technical challenges of translating a complex network and its interactions into a performant, scalable architecture.

Tom Pauwaert

Technical Lead

PVH Data Consulting

Hello I'm Alexander Hof

Alexander Hof is the Open Data Expert for Easybrussels, the agency responsible for administrative simplification in the Brussels-Capital Region. Alexander’s mission on Open Data is principally informing the regional administrations about the need of sharing and/or adapting their data and identifying together with them on how to proceed in order to make the data sets open to the public and insure that Brussels citizens and enterprises can benefit from them.